Miss Tammy Wynette
Observers have likened Tammy's life to a soap opera, and the star herself hardly cares to disagree. Her ascent in the country music business has the elements of drama, as does her personal life, with five marriages, a kidnapping attempt, and numerous hospitalizations. Tammy's father died when she was only eight months old, so she was turned over to her maternal grandparents while her mother did wartime factory work in Birmingham, Alabama.
Young Tammy grew up calling her grandparents Mommy & Daddy. She earned money by picking and chopping cotton on her grandfathers farm and thus was able to afford music lessons for the next five years. The instruments Tammy favored were those her father had played--piano, mandolin, guitar, accordion, and bass fiddle.
Tammy wanted to become a professional performer even though herfamily discouraged the idea. At first the possibility seemed highly unlikely--she married at seventeen and had three children and a divorce at twenty.
Tammy worked as a hairdresser in a Birmingham beauty shop. Tammy also won a part-time job as a backup singer on the "Country Boy Eddie Show," a localtelevision production. The exposure to show business re-awakened Tammy's desire to perform as a solo artist. Eventually she made several appearances on the "Porter Wagoner Show," and she used these as a entree to Nashville's recording companies.